A Royal Blog for all matters belonging to the King, a king, &/or kings.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

BS Fundraising

Alternate title: Receipts for the First Expedition to Beth Shemesh

About a week ago, I had the great fortune of adding yet another extremely rare autograph to my LMLK VIP collection, which I plan to feature in a future volume of my book series.

In this particular case, the bookseller was aware of a 2-page letter written by the author, Elihu Grant (who directed the second major suite of excavations at Beth Shemesh), but apparently didn't read the letter, or this portion of it:

"You [Dr. Field] asked me about the income for such adventures & I append a statement."

He wrote this letter May 2, 1929 shortly before his second excavation season, which was followed by 3 more in 1930, 1931, & 1933.

As much as I would enjoy simply showing you the ALS (autographed letter, signed), I'm still in a riddle mood, so I'd like to encourage readers to guess how much money Grant raised to excavate BYT SMS in 1928 (he received the donations between Oct. 27, 1927 & Jan. 1, 1929).

I need to receive guesses by 2 readers before I'll reveal the amount. No time limit!